The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-01-23
POSSIBILITIES AND PRoBABILI-
TIES.

Another week has gone and the
Tucker Edmunds bill remains in the
position that it was ten days ago. No |
thing further has been done with it or
about it. The delay looks ominous; 1t
has a discouraging appearance 10 the |
men who have been spending their time !
and money for the passage of the bill.
These men may try TO keep up their
courage by whistling, but it is evident
they are losing in the b lief that the
measure will become law. Under the
gag rule and guerrilla tactics the bill
was rushed through the House with
such haste as to take away the breath
OF sensible, cool-headed men and to as
tonish even those who had charge OF 1t;
nothing like it had ever before been
witnessed. The success of the bills ad-
vocates had been so great that they
naturally felt that the battle had been
won, and the war was over. Their con-
fidence in the prompt and favorable &C
lion of the Senate was something sub
lime to contemplate. At first it was
only a matter of hours when the bill
would become law; then the Senate re-
fused to accept the Tucker substitute
for the Edmunds bill, and the passage
of the bill became matter of days. Now
it is drifting into matter OF weeks, and
there is lurking suspicion in the at
mosphere that it may be matter of
years before the proposed law finds ITS
way into the statute books.
1t is just possible that having escaped
from the Tucker lash, and had time to
recover their breath, the members are
coming to the conclusion that they
were somewhat hasty in voting for
bill none of the provisions of which they
were familiar with, if they had even
ever heard them read, except in the
hasty, unintelligible manner in which
they were reeled off by the House
clerk. 1t is possible that having come
partly to their senses, they are not so
anxious to go on record against the
Mormons as to stand forth as framing
so unrepublican and outrageously cruel
measure as that Matched by Baskin
and fathered by Tucker. 1t is among the
possibilities that being freed from the
whip that the Virginian was cracking
over their heads Representatives are
willing that the bill should 60 no
further. 1t is not impossible that
other Congressman will now be
given an opportunity to present
the amendments which they were
not even permitted to read on the
18th instant. tits among the possible
tiles that the greatest and bitterest anti
Mormon of them all, the rabid Ed
munds, will not accept as substitute
for his bill measure drawn by an ex-
rebel, and which proposes to go further
than st. Jerome, in his most fendishly
extravagant mood. deemed it wise or
lawful to go. 1t is not impossible that
he will insist upon the substitution of
his own bill or its main features, and
the correspondingadestruction of Tuck
er's chief features. 1t is barely possible
that the conference committee will be
unable to agree as to this bill, and as to
substitute patched up from this and
the Senate bills. It is not improbable
that new conference committee will
I
have to be appointed.
A good many probabilities and posi-
bilities present themselves in this mat
ter, and they all have disheartening
effect on the managers of the Loyal
League. One of these is the possibility
that the Alta Club and the Loyal League
got drunk too soon, threw up their hats
too early, and apportioned the spoils
with too great haste that they shouted
while they were yet in the woods.